The present invention relates to a connector including:                a first connector part and a second connector part which can be coupled to each other and comprise at least one first end part of a conduit or transmission line and at least one second end part of a conduit or transmission line, respectively, for contacting with one another when first and second connector parts are coupled to each other; and        a first tubular element and a second tubular element which support the first and the second connector parts, respectively, and can be assembled with one another by means of an engaging movement so as to obtain coupling between the first and second connector parts, said engaging movement comprising a component of relative rotation of first and second tubular elements, about a longitudinal axis thereof,        wherein said first and second connector parts comprise a first support ring structure and a second support ring structure, respectively, which carry the first end part of a conduit or transmission line and the second end part of a conduit or transmission line, respectively.        
An example of connectors of this type consists of connectors used in the oil and gas industry for forming electric lines inside drill strings used to drill wells. These electric lines are used to transmit to the surface signals indicating the operating condition of the drilling equipment or the environmental or geological conditions inside the well.
Generally the drill strings used comprise hundreds of pipes and any other components connected in series. The electric lines must therefore transmit their signals through all the joints between successive components in the strings. Consequently, a single defective connection may result in the entire line malfunctioning.
There are different factors which affect the reliability of the connectors. Firstly, since in general the connection between components of the drill string is performed by means of screwing and since the manufacturing tolerances of the drilling components generally do not guarantee the degree of precision required by electrical equipment it may happen that, once assembly has been performed, the electrical contacts of successive components are not aligned with each other and/or there remains between them an axial gap which prevents contact from being achieved. Moreover a certain relative angular displacement between two components may occur accidentally during operation of the drill string, resulting in misalignment of the contacts.
These problems have been considered for example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,929,493 which describes a connector of the type defined at the start. The connector in U.S. Pat. No. 6,929,493 comprises a pair of annular contacts which are housed in respective annular seats, being embedded in an elastic material. Although this device appears to solve the problems mentioned above, it appears however that it is able to offset only partially manufacturing tolerances which are not very large.